Latest estimates suggest that the global production is more than 150 000 tonnes.
The Southern African region has a rich natural heritage of global significance to the world’s climate and biological diversity – or biodiversity. According to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Regional Biodiversity Strategy more than 40% of the region’s species are endemic – only found in their existing location. Biological diversity also referred to as biodiversity is defined as the degree of variation of life forms within a given species, ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is of fundamental importance to the functioning of all natural and human-engineered ecosystems, and by extension to the ecosystem services that nature provides to human society.
While the love affair with all things natural continues on the high street, and more and more fragrances are launched each year, just what is the state of the aromatic plant and essential oil industry at the grassroots level? The answer is, by and large, bad.
Rapidly increasing costs of land and labor and lack of investment for more than 100 years in new plant and equipment means that the essential oil industry is basically much smaller and less developed today than it was when Ernest Guenther travelled the world to research his magnificent book series, “The Essential Oils,” which were published in 1948.
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